Ghosts of New Orleans

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Ghosts of New Orleans

by Cedward

Hello and welcome back! To continue with the theme of spookiness this Halloween season, I shall be talking about none other than the historical, haunted city of New Orleans, Louisiana.

Everything I will be talking about from here on is pure fact, or what is believed there in New Orleans, from ghosts, to voodoo queens and vampires.

I have visited this amazing city twice, once for a Harry Potter Conference (Phoenix Rising) and loved it so much. This is where my husband and I spent our honeymoon.

When I first visited back in 2007, I didn’t do nearly all that I wanted to do while there, but what I did do was a ghost/vampire tour that Haunted History Tours specifically put together for us, as the two are completely separate tours.

Upon returning in 2008, my husband and I took the full tours and this is where the journey begins. I have chosen two stories of ghosts to share with you and one vampire. Be warned however, if you pass this point, be prepared for grizzly recounting of some horrific events that took place in this city.

One of the most chilling stops on the ghost tour was at 1140 Royal Street, the LaLaurie Mansion. When the LaLaurie’s occupied this spot, slavery was in full swing. They would host lavish balls and dinners, expertly prepared by the staff. Madame LaLaurie, what the public and friend’s saw, was a jovial woman, with a wonderful husband and two loving daughters.

What they didn’t see, was the way she treated her slaves. However, one day the next door neighbor heard a blood curdling scream and looked out her top window just in time to see the Madame chasing her personal servant out of the room and on to the roof with a whip. Rather than be in service to a crazy lady, the poor girl jumped from the top of the building killing herself. The Madame then buried the girl under a tree on the property and carried on as if nothing had happened. As a result of this, the neighbor notified the police and the servants were taken and auctioned off.

But, Madame LaLaurie wasn’t going down without a fight. She coerced a family member to buy the slaves and sell them back to her.

The slaves however, were having none of it. After too many of their own had been taken, killed, or mysteriously disappeared, they took action.

Though no one knows exactly how, or who, a fire was set.

As a crowd gathered around the place, from the back of the house a carriage burst forth and off into the night. This was presumably the LaLaurie family fleeing, as they were not found amongst the victims and they were never seen again.

Once the fire was put out, the fire and police began their investigations. In the basement of the house, dozens of bodies were discovered.

Bodies that had either been dismembered and mutilated. A body of a woman was found, legs and arms completely gone from the body. Another girl was found with her limbs broken, they had set at very wrong angles due to the fact she was shoved into a cage.

Other slaves were found barely clinging to life, with their eyes gouged out and mouths filled with excrement then only to be sewn shut. Another had it’s hands sewn to their body, a hole drilled into his head with a stick protruding out from it. The police says that this was to ’stir the brains with.’

After the shocking events that took place here, the place had yet to see a tenant last too long. It has been everything from a private home, apartments, a music store, dance studio and a furniture store. All tenants here claim to hear strange noises and phantom screams.
In 2007, actor Nicholas Cage purchased this place, though didn’t last too long here and in 2008 put the home up for sale. The place remains vacant today.

Next stop on our ghost tour is the Andrew Jackson Hotel. 

This is a sad story, but a little more light hearted than the previous. The Andrew Jackson Hotel had once been a boys boarding school, as well as a courthouse that Andrew Jackson was once fined in. But it’s the boarding school that the story is told about.

During the 1800’s yellow fever spread through the city, killing a lot of citizens, including the young boys that haunt this place.

We were told a story about a young couple that stayed here for their honeymoon. While getting ready for their adventure the next day, they readied a camera and a roll of film to take with them. When they went on their site seeing tour the following day, they discovered that the roll of film in the camera, which they were sure had four pictures remaining, was filled up. Not thinking too much of it, they changed the film and went about their day.

It wasn’t until later, when the arrive back home and developed the pictures that they saw what had been taken.

The last four pictures were of them sleeping in bed.

Outraged the lady called the hotel and demanded to talk to a manager and proceeded to tell him about the pictures and how rude it was that his staff would do such a thing. He insisted that she send copies and she did. Little did she know that he would then have them looked at by a photo analysis.

The pictures were taken in the late night hours before dawn. At a height of about nine feet. Directly above their bed.
After that we not told anymore about what transpired with the people. But the tour guide did tell us about how when his family came over from London, he sat his parents up in the hotel.

He took great joy in hearing his mother and father bicker about one another pulling the sheets down during the middle of the night, when in fact, neither of them were. It was the playful spirits of rambunctious boys that still play in the hotel. It is said that you can hear children’s laughter and foot steps in the place. All the while, it doesn’t allow children to stay there.

Moving on, this site caters to vampire fans, so what would it be without a vampire story?

This story has chilled me from the time I heard the condensed version back in 2007, to the full story in 2008, till now.


The Ursuline Convent. Established back in the early 1700’s as an all girls school, where the young girls came from Germany and France to spread the word of the Christian faith. They were shipped over and their belongings were secured in coffin shaped boxes, they were mockingly called the Casket Girls. Amongst these coffins and girls that were landed, a few were taken to the third floor, now the attic. And from there the windows were shuttered closed, never to be opened again.

It was on this tour that guide told us to stand and look around what was different about this place than the rest? None of us knew. Then he pointed out that the shutters on the attic were closed. They were the only ones around us that were and have been since the moment they were placed there back in the 1700’s.

During this time it was unheard of to put shutters on attic windows, that they had no electricity at this time and to not be able to open the windows would cause heat stroke and death.

Another interesting thing that he pointed out was that each shutter was secured in place by silver nails and screws, blessed by the pope.

Our tour guide then told us a story, which sort of scared me. He was giving the tour like he usually did and when he rounded the corner to lead his tour to the convent, once of the shutters to the attic was gone. He had no words and for whatever reason he had a gut feeling he should not be there at the point and led the tour elsewhere.
He went by the next day and they had bricked up the window and covered it with a black tarp. It took a total of nine days to fix, as they had to fly a priest from Rome to bless the nails and screws before they could board it back up.

This all took place two weeks before Hurricane Katrina hit.

Another story from the convent goes like this. In the late 1970’s, a group of young paranormal investigators set up shop in a courtyard across the street from the convents. Two young girls were left with a video camera as the rest headed to a local bar. They were supposed to meet them a little after midnight for drinks.

They never showed up.

Two hours after the scheduled meeting time, the rest of the group went looking for the girls, only to find their camera smashed into several pieces and no sign of the girls.

It wasn’t until dawn that the girls bodies were discovered, mere feet from where they were, at the entrance to the convent’s courtyard. Their bodies had precise cuts along their backs with nearly all of their blood drained from their bodies.

To this day, no one is allowed up there, except for the pope himself. When questioned about why nobody is allowed up there, they get no response of the subject.

A few good questions arise from this that the guide pointed out. If they have nothing to hide up there, why not let people up there to see it with their own eyes. And if they have nothing to hide, why all the extra measures to secure nothing?

These tours to me were very informative, historical and fun (not to mention both tour guides were hot, especially the vampire guide. Come on, long hair and leather…). We also had the chance to do the voodoo tour, which taught us the differences between hoodoo and voodoo, as well as the haunted cemetery tour which taught us a lot about the reasons behind above ground cemeteries and the hundred body tombs.

I’d say, if you ever get the chance to visit New Orleans, hit up the Haunted History Tour guys and take a tour or two of theirs, you will not be disappointed one bit. Just be warned, it’s two hours of amazing walking through the French Quarter and they even allow you to drink, as one of the break stops is the Jean Lafitte tavern, where he brutally killed the men who betrayed him by shoving their heads into the double sided fireplace that still functions inside.

Hope you enjoyed this little romp through New Orleans.

Until next time,

Cedward.